Creativity Gym...creating the life & biz you love...colourfully

I have been wondering for over a year now whether the wave of Intuitive Art is gaining momentum worldwide, and is about to crash onto South African shores.  When I piloted Creativity Gym (see our FB page for juicy photos and upcoming events ) last year, I began researching what similar concepts existed.  ArtJamming seemed to be the closest, but they didn't combine movement or exercise.  They've been around since their birth in 2002 in Hong Kong, and are now franchised globally.  From what I can gather it costs about R180 000 to become a franchisee, you pay 10% royalties and your studio set up is at least R140 000 to begin with. You are also paying retail rentals in upmarket malls, marketing, business and staff costs, etc.  Anyhow, I digress. The point is, they started here too, with a store in the V&A in Cape Town and then another in Wembley Square apparently.  And in Feb this year, they opened in Johannesburg.  

The reason I never went that route?  My concept is much more personal, and is based on the idea that we really grow and share amazing inner resource when we are creating art.  So, Creativity Gym is about that - doing much more than just painting.  We use different media, offer a variety of courses with different objectives, processes and outcomes, and take it beyond the superficial "one-off" painting experience.  And when I say 'superficial', I don't mean that as an insult, I mean it descriptively.  It's 'single-layered' so to speak, it's just a splash of paint onto canvas - which there is a time (and clearly a place) for!  But imagine when it's a splash of soul onto canvas...how different that is, and how much deeper.

Aside from them, there are the occasional visiting teachers who come to South Africa to facilitate workshops.  Recently a fairly private one was organised for Catherine Winkler to share her process in Alberton for R700, and before that an OSHO style 4 day process was facilitated in Cape Town for several thousand rand participation fee.  I'm sharing the prices out of interest, because I suspect there's a sliding scale of costs to participants, based on everything I see.  So far, the most expensive course I've seen in South Africa is a residential weekend retreat for R20 000 or R18 000 excluding accomodation!

In the corporate team build space, several companies and individuals have jumped on the band wagon, offering everything from a rip-off of ArtJamming (even called the same by one unscrupulous company) to more intricate team based exercises that involve painting.  

And when I look at my FB ad campaign? I notice that we get a far higher number of clicks on any ad that mentions both Soul and Painting or Soul and Art on it!  We've had over 200 clicks within 10 days and over 40 responses via email.  One of them was to open up a franchise studio in a different province where they too have been feeling like a creative desert with no rain.  So what does all this tell me?  I think the time for Intuitive Art to arrive and take up home in South Africa has arrived.  And to have allowed another minute to go by looking for venues, arranging the business side of things, planning the workshops and courses, looking for staff, etc etc before actually opening our doors would have been another minute wasted.  Another minute where South Africa remains deprived of outlets for it's creative self expression through the incredible, simple, wonderful form of Intuitive Painting.  We look forward to sharing more about the wave as it breaks onto shore.
 
Souliciously, Your Soul Painting Super Surfer Chicks, B & M